Lachrymæ Musarum Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDDCAACA EFGEFGHIHIH JJKKKLKLMEKL JNNJNJNJJN IOIOJJJJPGGP BQQQRSJSJTJJTTJDAAGD BGAADGGD UUQQQVVWWXOOXOJOJYYZ A2A2ZA2ZA2 B2B2NB2NA2PA2PC2QC2Q QC2D2D2JKJKLow like another's lies the laurelled head | A |
The life that seemed a perfect song is o'er | B |
Carry the last great bard to his last bed | A |
Land that he loved thy noblest voice is mute | C |
Land that he loved that loved him nevermore | D |
Meadow of thine smooth lawn or wild sea shore | D |
Gardens of odorous bloom and tremulous fruit | C |
Or woodlands old like Druid couches spread | A |
The master's feet shall tread | A |
Death's little rift hath rent the faultless lute | C |
The singer of undying songs is dead | A |
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Lo in this season pensive hued and grave | E |
While fades and falls the doomed reluctant leaf | F |
From withered Earth's fantastic coronal | G |
With wandering sighs of forest and of wave | E |
Mingles the murmur of a people's grief | F |
For him whose leaf shall fade not neither fall | G |
He hath fared forth beyond these suns and showers | H |
For us the autumn glow the autumn flame | I |
And soon the winter silence shall be ours | H |
Him the eternal spring of fadeless fame | I |
Crowns with no mortal flowers | H |
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Rapt though he be from us | J |
Virgil salutes him and Theocritus | J |
Catullus mightiest brained Lucretius each | K |
Greets him their brother on the Stygian beach | K |
Proudly a gaunt right hand doth Dante reach | K |
Milton and Wordsworth bid him welcome home | L |
Bright Keats to touch his raiment doth beseech | K |
Coleridge his locks aspersed with fairy foam | L |
Calm Spenser Chaucer suave | M |
His equal friendship crave | E |
And godlike spirits hail him guest in speech | K |
Of Athens Florence Weimar Stratford Rome | L |
- | |
What needs his laurel our ephemeral tears | J |
To save from visitation of decay | N |
Not in this temporal sunlight now that bay | N |
Blooms nor to perishable mundane ears | J |
Sings he with lips of transitory clay | N |
For he hath joined the chorus of his peers | J |
In habitations of the perfect day | N |
His earthly notes a heavenly audience hears | J |
And more melodious are henceforth the spheres | J |
Enriched with music stol'n from earth away | N |
- | |
He hath returned to regions whence he came | I |
Him doth the spirit divine | O |
Of universal loveliness reclaim | I |
All nature is his shrine | O |
Seek him henceforward in the wind and sea | J |
In earth's and air's emotion or repose | J |
In every star's august serenity | J |
And in the rapture of the flaming rose | J |
There seek him if ye would not seek in vain | P |
There in the rhythm and music of the Whole | G |
Yea and for ever in the human soul | G |
Made stronger and more beauteous by his strain | P |
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For lo creation's self is one great choir | B |
And what is nature's order but the rhyme | Q |
Whereto the worlds keep time | Q |
And all things move with all things from their prime | Q |
Who shall expound the mystery of the lyre | R |
In far retreats of elemental mind | S |
Obscurely comes and goes | J |
The imperative breath of song that as the wind | S |
Is trackless and oblivious whence it blows | J |
Demand of lilies wherefore they are white | T |
Extort her crimson secret from the rose | J |
But ask not of the Muse that she disclose | J |
The meaning of the riddle of her might | T |
Somewhat of all things sealed and recondite | T |
Save the enigma of herself she knows | J |
The master could not tell with all his lore | D |
Wherefore he sang or whence the mandate sped | A |
Ev'n as the linnet sings so I he said | A |
Ah rather as the imperial nightingale | G |
That held in trance the ancient Attic shore | D |
And charms the ages with the notes that o'er | B |
All woodland chants immortally prevail | G |
And now from our vain plaudits greatly fled | A |
He with diviner silence dwells instead | A |
And on no earthly sea with transient roar | D |
Unto no earthly airs he trims his sail | G |
But far beyond our vision and our hail | G |
Is heard for ever and is seen no more | D |
- | |
No more O never now | U |
Lord of the lofty and the tranquil brow | U |
Whereon nor snows of time | Q |
Have fall'n nor wintry rime | Q |
Shall men behold thee sage and mage sublime | Q |
Once in his youth obscure | V |
The maker of this verse which shall endure | V |
By splendour of its theme that cannot die | W |
Beheld thee eye to eye | W |
And touched through thee the hand | X |
Of every hero of thy race divine | O |
Ev'n to the sire of all the laurelled line | O |
The sightless wanderer on the Ionian strand | X |
With soul as healthful as the poignant brine | O |
Wide as his skies and radiant as his seas | J |
Starry from haunts of his Familiars nine | O |
Glorious M onides | J |
Yea I beheld thee and behold thee yet | Y |
Thou hast forgotten but can I forget | Y |
The accents of thy pure and sovereign tongue | Z |
Are they not ever goldenly impressed | A2 |
On memory's palimpsest | A2 |
I see the wizard locks like night that hung | Z |
I tread the floor thy hallowing feet have trod | A2 |
I see the hands a nation's lyre that strung | Z |
The eyes that looked through life and gazed on God | A2 |
- | |
The seasons change the winds they shift and veer | B2 |
The grass of yesteryear | B2 |
Is dead the birds depart the groves decay | N |
Empires dissolve and peoples disappear | B2 |
Song passes not away | N |
Captains and conquerors leave a little dust | A2 |
And kings a dubious legend of their reign | P |
The swords of C sars they are less than rust | A2 |
The poet doth remain | P |
Dead is Augustus Maro is alive | C2 |
And thou the Mantuan of our age and clime | Q |
Like Virgil shalt thy race and tongue survive | C2 |
Bequeathing no less honeyed words to time | Q |
Embalmed in amber of eternal rhyme | Q |
And rich with sweets from every Muse's hive | C2 |
While to the measure of the cosmic rune | D2 |
For purer ears thou shalt thy lyre attune | D2 |
And heed no more the hum of idle praise | J |
In that great calm our tumults cannot reach | K |
Master who crown'st our immelodious days | J |
With flower of perfect speech | K |
William Watson
(1)
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